On Monday November 23 TBS aired a 44-minute Special about Shitaro’s movie Snow Prince ~ Kinjirareta koi no melody. It was hosted by a TBS announcer and two ladies I am not familiar with, and together they tracked down the history of the the Snow Prince story, from the 1975 anime series to the 1997 animated movie and finally the 2009 live action movie. There is some footage of the movie’s world premiere in Antwerp, Belgium in October, behind the scenes footage (some of which I’m sure we’ll see again in the making-of that will hopefully be featured on the DVD when it’s released) and lots of scenes from the movie itself that you have never seen before unless you’re one of the lucky few who already had a chance to see the movie in Hawaii or London. Very often we’re reminded to buy the single (YesAsia – CDJapan), and to bring handkerchiefs when we go to see the film because it’s a real tearjerker.
Here’s a little teaser that should give you a good idea of what the whole SP is like. If you like it download the whole thing, as it’s well worth watching.
Download: 20091123[Snow Prince SP].avi MU / MF 001 002 (join with HJSplit) – Credit: dourrzu
Oh what can I say? Cute boy + cute dog + Academy Award winning production team = a movie that I wouldn’t want to miss.
I’ll be back tomorrow with the preorder sales figures for Snow Prince Gasshoudan’s single. To be honest, I don’t know what to expect. Since both the group and the song are so different from the regular Johnny’s releases we’re used to I guess that 35~40,000 preorders would be really good, while anything over 50,000 would be totally awesome, and I will try not to be too disappointed when the preorders are only 20,000 or so. We’ll see. Let’s just keep in mind that this isn’t a boy band like Arashi, Hey!Say!JUMP or NCY boys, it’s a boys choir, and the single will owe 30% of its success to the fact that it’s Johnny’s, 30% to the mere fact that it’s Christmas, and 30% to its movie tie-in. Only 10% will buy the single because they think it’s a great song, regardless of who sings it or why, but I guess that’s how the music industry works these days.
Anyway, the good news is that the Limited Edition of the single is already sold out at CDJapan, so maybe the sales will be quite good after all. And you know… Akanishi Jin starred in a movie, released a #1 tie-in single and will release a tie-in album in January (YesAsia – CDJapan), so who says that Shintaro can’t do exactly the same? I don’t think it’s gonna happen, but hey, a fanboy can dream, right?
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